Although the Internet began as a communications medium primarily for military and academic research, it has increased in scope to include business, commerce, entertainment, and nearly every aspect of Internet users' personal lives. The intersections between personal, family, professional, and public spheres are areas of vulnerability, where private information may be disclosed to unintended audiences. Advertisers, law enforcement, current and potential employers, hackers, and scammers all have an interest in gathering personal information to which they may not be entitled, and individuals may wish to maintain a level of privacy even from close friends and immediate family members.
Web browser histories are a potential treasure trove of personal data. Records of visited websites may reveal a user's interests, beliefs, affiliations, habits, wishes, weaknesses, or addictions. To prevent the collection of a browser history, the option exists to not maintain a browser history at all, and most browsers now allow the user to easily switch to a browsing mode that does not maintain a history. However, browser histories are a useful record of websites to which the user may wish to return. Rather, the user may want maintain a browser history, but also protect their privacy by keeping a record of certain website visits out of the history. To that end, the user may delete certain websites from the browser history manually, but this approach would require a considerable commitment of time and attention from the user. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for managing web browser histories.